January Current Events: 50 is my favorite caliber AND my BMI

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > January Current Events: 50 is my favorite caliber AND my BMI

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A Bad Poster: Sep 25, 2006; Seriously, shut the fuck up.

orange juche posted:

Positional authority is the term for the person who is acting on behalf of the commander, sometimes it's coat tail riding sometimes it's legitimate. Depends on the situation really.

The difference is akin to your sibling saying "if you don't do this, I'm telling dad" and "dad told me to tell you to do this."

# ? Jan 17, 2020 04:57

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 06:54

orange juche: Mar 14, 2012

Usually it's not some private fucknuts running around giving orders on behalf of a general. You will see it happen between enlisted members of a commanders staff and a command they are I guess embedded with. I can only use naval scenarios because that's what I have experience with.

Example Petty Officer 2nd class Schmuckatelli comes down to the communications shop and tells us the the Admiral's NIPR computer isn't working, and basically orders someone from the comms shop to come fix it. That would fly if they're a member of the commander's staff, and also the commander's comms guy. If they're not both of those, often they will be told to get lost.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 05:01

joat mon: Oct 15, 2009; I am the master of my lamp;
I am the captain of my tub.

Milo and POTUS posted:

https://twitter.com/TheJewishDream/status/1217820957659877377

Dat gap.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 05:03

AARP LARPer: Feb 19, 2005; THE DARK SIDE OF SCIENCE BREEDS A WEAPON OF WAR; Buglord

�positional authority�

awesome. thanks for the responses!

# ? Jan 17, 2020 05:13

McNally: Sep 13, 2007; Ask me about Proposition 305

Do you like muskets?

AARP LARPer posted:

Thanks for letting me pop in here real quick. I have a dumb question that doesn't merit a thread and you seem like a decent lot.

You know how a high-ranking officer might employ an enlisted soldier as a personal aide-de-camp or whatever you call it -- and that enlisted soldier enjoys a certain....uh.... "freedom of action"...far beyond his rank because of who he works for?

Is there a term used to describe this type of coat-tail riding in the military? I'm going to beat you to the punch with "Another day that ends in -y", but seriously...what do you call that sort of power that a low-ranking dude inherits that way?

The kind of authority being thrown around because of who someone works for won't get extended to some junior enlisted dude. If an officer is high ranking enough that people working for him have that kind of clout to throw around, they're usually wearing stars and are telling junior officers to do their bidding.

Well, they're telling senior officers to tell the junior officers to do their bidding, really.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 05:13

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

In the Navy a captain in charge of a small command will have a master chief who follows him around and yells �stand bye� and other stuff you better pay attention to.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 05:21

M_Gargantua: Oct 16, 2006; STOMP'N ON INTO THE POWERLINES; Exciting Lemon

Navy Example. The aide's themselves will all be pretty senior. Lets say you've got an middling Admiral, an O-8. He'll have a commander (O-5) as senior errand boy to go tell other important people messages on the admirals behalf and handle scheduling etc. Each of them will have a senior enlisted, a Master Chief (E-9), as their enforcers. Master Chiefs have authority because they've been in the service for longer than most officers and actually know whats going on. They get positional authority as well because they're part of the Admirals staff.

Then you have the gophers. This will be one or two promising junior officers, Lieutenants (O-3). These tend to be either exceptionally smart guys who still have energy to do their jobs or bootlicking academy grads who are friendly with the right people. They follow along and do miscellaneous work, both for the senior officers and the senior enlisted. Then you get down to the minions. The staff gremlins who do the daily grind, E-5's and E-6s. The only positional authority they get is when they're doing normal job things and people are being uncooperative. Now the implicit positional authority is when you're in their office and trying to get them to do something YOU want them to do for you, and they can mostly just slow roll you if they don't want to do it because whatever it is is ~surely~ less important than the work for the admiral. Also since they're on the admirals staff they will gently caress you over out of spite if you are a dick to them. "Our shipping receipts say you never submitted that critical package due friday, so sad" sort of quiet revenge.

McNally posted:

The kind of authority being thrown around because of who someone works for won't get extended to some junior enlisted dude. If an officer is high ranking enough that people working for him have that kind of clout to throw around, they're usually wearing stars and are telling junior officers to do their bidding.

Well, they're telling senior officers to tell the junior officers to do their bidding, really.

Yeah the junior enlisted in this scenario is a minion, but one of many lesser minions.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 05:49

A Bad Poster: Sep 25, 2006; Seriously, shut the fuck up.

The general rule is don't be a dick and people won't be dicks to you. A potential favor in the future is (almost) always worth more than just loving some random guy over.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 05:52

orange juche: Mar 14, 2012

As a side note it's fun from the outside looking in when a junior officer comes to you and asks what they should do in X situation and you tell them to grow a pair and figure it out (noncritical situation obviously, if they actually need help or will gently caress poo poo up I give advice). Id have never been able to do that as an enlisted dork but it's fun to do it to young officers now, I can see why senior enlisted enjoy it.

orange juche fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Jan 17, 2020

# ? Jan 17, 2020 05:58

Godholio: Aug 28, 2002; Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

loving slenderman on the cover of Time. Never thought I'd see the day.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 06:23

A Bad Poster: Sep 25, 2006; Seriously, shut the fuck up.

Godholio posted:

loving slenderman on the cover of Time. Never thought I'd see the day.

Donny is going to be pissed that it isn't himself.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 06:32

Milo and POTUS: Sep 3, 2017; I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?

Not slender, barely a man

# ? Jan 17, 2020 06:33

CRUSTY MINGE: Mar 30, 2011; Peggy Hill
Foot Connoisseur

Is that even a mens suit? I suspect there are shoulder pads in that jacket.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 06:45

ElMaligno: Dec 31, 2004; Be Gay!
Do Crime!

The Spopy fanfiction secret nerd scientists wikipedia AKA SCP is having a contest to fill its #5000 slot. Someone wrote the years 2016-2020 as an anomaly.

Its a delight

# ? Jan 17, 2020 07:52

Bored As Fuck: Jan 1, 2006; Fun Shoe

ElMaligno posted:

The Spopy fanfiction secret nerd scientists wikipedia AKA SCP is having a contest to fill its #5000 slot. Someone wrote the years 2016-2020 as an anomaly.

Its a delight

What is scp and spopy and all those other words.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 08:21

Nostalgia4Butts: Jun 1, 2006; WHERE MY HOSE DRINKERS AT

government report fanfiction

# ? Jan 17, 2020 08:22

M_Gargantua: Oct 16, 2006; STOMP'N ON INTO THE POWERLINES; Exciting Lemon

Bored As gently caress posted:

What is scp and spopy and all those other words.

There once was a website that had some cool spooky stories written as if they were file entries in a government database. Now it�s famous enough that there are thousands of trash entries and it�s the deviant art of horror fan fiction.

Here for example is a collection of not entirely trash tales written by a good goon writer. http://www.scp-wiki.net/antimemetics-division-hub

# ? Jan 17, 2020 08:46

sharknado slashfic: Jun 24, 2011

M_Gargantua posted:

There once was a website that had some cool spooky stories written as if they were file entries in a government database. Now it�s famous enough that there are thousands of trash entries and it�s the deviant art of horror fan fiction.

Here for example is a collection of not entirely trash tales written by a good goon writer. http://www.scp-wiki.net/antimemetics-division-hub

Dang I spent a lot of time on SCP back in the day (a few years ago). I remember someone invented a Thing that couldn't be killed by anything and they put a lot of Things in the cell with it to try and kill it and they all failed.

It was like the Cabin in the Woods cells in report form if that makes any sense

sharknado slashfic fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Jan 17, 2020

# ? Jan 17, 2020 08:53

Smiling Jack: Dec 2, 2001; I sucked a dick for bus fare and then I walked home.

sharknado slashfic posted:

Dang I spent a lot of time on SCP back in the day (a few years ago). I remember someone invented a Thing that couldn't be killed by anything and they put a lot of Things in the cell with it to try and kill it and they all failed.

It was like the Cabin in the Woods cells in report form if that makes any sense

SCP-682

# ? Jan 17, 2020 09:25

C.M. Kruger: Oct 28, 2013

Did they ever remove the pregnant child rape one or are they still refusing to remove some libertarian's jackoff fantasies?

# ? Jan 17, 2020 09:42

Kazinsal: Dec 13, 2011

As far as I know the site staff removed all the rape poo poo a few years back, and if the one you're thinking of is the one I'm thinking of, it doesn't even imply that anymore.

My favourite entry is still SCP-294, the drink vending machine that will do its damnedest to either find you whatever you punch in, whether or not it's a good idea, or get you something that's "technically correct".

# ? Jan 17, 2020 09:52

Kesper North: Nov 3, 2011; EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY

Kazinsal posted:

As far as I know the site staff removed all the rape poo poo a few years back, and if the one you're thinking of is the one I'm thinking of, it doesn't even imply that anymore.

My favourite entry is still SCP-294, the drink vending machine that will do its damnedest to either find you whatever you punch in, whether or not it's a good idea, or get you something that's "technically correct".

Lord help you if you punch in red phosphorous instead of red phosphate.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 10:08

ElMaligno: Dec 31, 2004; Be Gay!
Do Crime!

C.M. Kruger posted:

Did they ever remove the pregnant child rape one or are they still refusing to remove some libertarian's jackoff fantasies?

231 Its been made less overt about that and has been folded into Scarlet King bullshit.

Its still bad and i hate it.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 10:16

colachute: Mar 15, 2015

fknlo posted:

Well that's certainly a thing. Can't believe the administration would lie about that. There's no way that wasn't going to come out at some point.

because nobody gives a poo poo what happened. the point is to make sure you tell the story first, not that you tell the story correctly.

the economy could plummet into a depression overnight and as long as the white house's official stance is that everything is fine, then people will think it is fine while standing in line for bread *as long as they heard that everything was fine before they heard we are in a depression*

this is reality now. be the first one to shout instead of the first one to be right.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 11:59

Stultus Maximus: Dec 21, 2009; USPOL May

Stanley Goodspeed posted:

I kind of thought the entire point of drones was that it was way more okay to have a robot plane get blown up compared to a real live person so seeing these noble sky aces trying to keep their plane insurance from spiking is pretty wild, but I guess this is the same Army that catastrophically combined two helicopters in flight attempting to find a single handgun.

When I was doing UAV ops in the neighborhood, I assumed that if Hezbollah or the IRGC lobbed some missiles like this, I'd be getting the birds in the air and dodging explosions. Reason being, risk of the missiles being the first wave of something bigger and having the cameras in the air would be the best early warning if something ground based was coming next.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 13:23

stealie72: Jan 10, 2007

I assume drones are not much different to get in the air than conventional aircraft (fueling, starting, taxiing to the runway, etc.), so having an "oh poo poo, incoming" button that automatically has them take off and circle wherever they are is not practical?

# ? Jan 17, 2020 13:54

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

Brb gonna make a conex box that can be set up as a catapult to instantly fling drones in the air. Maybe toss some rockets on them too.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 13:59

Flying_Crab: Apr 12, 2002

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...af6d_story.html :stare:

quote:

�I want to win,� he said. �We don�t win any wars anymore . . . We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and we�re not winning anymore.�
Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn�t taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.
�I wouldn�t go to war with you people,� Trump told the assembled brass.
Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, �You�re a bunch of dopes and babies.�

# ? Jan 17, 2020 14:28

Mr. Nice!: Oct 13, 2005; bone shaking.
soul baking.

Flying_Crab posted:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...af6d_story.html

When linking to something like the washington post, can you just inline the entire article? Likewise if anyone finds anything on the wall street journal they want posted lemme know.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 14:30

Mr. Nice!: Oct 13, 2005; bone shaking.
soul baking.

Here's some light reading about the Musk/Tesla ponzi: https://www.plainsite.org/realitycheck/tsla.pdf

# ? Jan 17, 2020 14:31

stealie72: Jan 10, 2007

Mr. Nice! posted:

When linking to something like the washington post, can you just inline the entire article? Likewise if anyone finds anything on the wall street journal they want posted lemme know.

Paraphrasing here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBWmkwaTQ0k&t=11s

# ? Jan 17, 2020 14:40

SimonCat: Aug 12, 2016; by Nyc_Tattoo; College Slice

stealie72 posted:

Paraphrasing here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBWmkwaTQ0k&t=11s

Just what I was thinking of.

Here's the full article:

WaPo posted:

By
Carol D. Leonnig and
Philip Rucker
Jan. 17, 2020 at 5:00 a.m. CST
This article is adapted from �A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump�s Testing of America,� which will be published on Jan. 21 by Penguin Press.

There is no more sacred room for military officers than 2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters. Its more common name is �the Tank.� The Tank resembles a small corporate boardroom, with a gleaming golden oak table, leather swivel armchairs and other mid-century stylings. Inside its walls, flag officers observe a reverence and decorum for the wrenching decisions that have been made there.

Hanging prominently on one of the walls is The Peacemakers, a painting that depicts an 1865 Civil War strategy session with President Abraham Lincoln and his three service chiefs � Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, and Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. One hundred fifty-�two years after Lincoln hatched plans to preserve the Union, President Trump�s advisers staged an intervention inside the Tank to try to preserve the world order.

By that point, six months into his administration, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had grown alarmed by gaping holes in Trump�s knowledge of history, especially the key alliances forged following World War II. Trump had dismissed allies as worthless, cozied up to authoritarian regimes in Russia and elsewhere, and advocated withdrawing troops from strategic outposts and active theaters alike.

New book portrays Trump as erratic, �at times dangerously uninformed�

Trump organized his unorthodox worldview under the simplistic banner of �America First,� but Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn feared his proposals were rash, barely considered, and a danger to America�s superpower standing. They also felt that many of Trump�s impulsive ideas stemmed from his lack of familiarity with U.S. history and, even, where countries were located. To have a useful discussion with him, the trio agreed, they had to create a basic knowledge, a shared language.

Trump on Mattis: 'President Obama fired him and... so did I'
President Trump spoke about his former defense secretary at a Cabinet meeting Jan. 2, saying he was not "too happy" with how Jim Mattis handled Afghanistan. (The Washington Post)
So on July 20, 2017, Mattis invited Trump to the Tank for what he, Tillerson, and Cohn had carefully organized as a tailored tutorial. What happened inside the Tank that day crystallized the commander in chief�s berating, derisive and dismissive manner, foreshadowing decisions such as the one earlier this month that brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. The Tank meeting was a turning point in Trump�s presidency. Rather than getting him to appreciate America�s traditional role and alliances, Trump began to tune out and eventually push away the experts who believed their duty was to protect the country by restraining his more dangerous impulses.

The episode has been documented numerous times, but subsequent reporting reveals a more complete picture of the moment and the chilling effect Trump�s comments and hostility had on the nation�s military and national security leadership.

Just before 10 a.m. on a scorching summer Thursday, Trump arrived at the Pentagon. He stepped out of his motorcade, walked along a corridor with portraits honoring former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, and stepped inside the Tank. The uniformed officers greeted their commander in chief. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph F. Dunford Jr. sat in the seat of honor midway down the table, because this was his room, and Trump sat at the head of the table facing a projection screen. Mattis and the newly confirmed deputy defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, sat to the president�s left, with Vice President Pence and Tillerson to his right. Down the table sat the leaders of the military branches, along with Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon was in the outer ring of chairs with other staff, taking his seat just behind Mattis and directly in Trump�s line of sight.

Mattis, Cohn, and Tillerson and their aides decided to use maps, graphics, and charts to tutor the president, figuring they would help keep him from getting bored. Mattis opened with a slide show punctuated by lots of dollar signs. Mattis devised a strategy to use terms the impatient president, schooled in real estate, would appreciate to impress upon him the value of U.S. investments abroad. He sought to explain why U.S. troops were deployed in so many regions and why America�s safety hinged on a complex web of trade deals, alliances, and bases across the globe.

An opening line flashed on the screen, setting the tone: �The post-war international rules-based order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation.� Mattis then gave a 20-minute briefing on the power of the NATO alliance to stabilize Europe and keep the United States safe. Bannon thought to himself, �Not good. Trump is not going to like that one bit.� The internationalist language Mattis was using was a trigger for Trump.

�Oh, baby, this is going to be f---ing wild,� Bannon thought. �If you stood up and threatened to shoot [Trump], he couldn�t say �postwar rules-based international order.� It�s just not the way he thinks.�

For the next 90 minutes, Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn took turns trying to emphasize their points, pointing to their charts and diagrams. They showed where U.S. personnel were positioned, at military bases, CIA stations, and embassies, and how U.S. deployments fended off the threats of terror cells, nuclear blasts, and destabilizing enemies in places including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Korea Peninsula, and Syria. Cohn spoke for about 20 minutes about the value of free trade with America�s allies, emphasizing how he saw each trade agreement working together as part of an overall structure to solidify U.S. economic and national security.

Trump appeared peeved by the schoolhouse vibe but also allergic to the dynamic of his advisers talking at him. His ricocheting attention span led him to repeatedly interrupt the lesson. He heard an adviser say a word or phrase and then seized on that to interject with his take. For instance, the word �base� prompted him to launch in to say how �crazy� and �stupid� it was to pay for bases in some countries.

Trump�s first complaint was to repeat what he had vented about to his national security adviser months earlier: South Korea should pay for a $10 billion missile defense system that the United States built for it. The system was designed to shoot down any short- and medium-range ballistic missiles from North Korea to protect South Korea and American troops stationed there. But Trump argued that the South Koreans should pay for it, proposing that the administration pull U.S. troops out of the region or bill the South Koreans for their protection.

�We should charge them rent,� Trump said of South Korea. �We should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.�

Trump proceeded to explain that NATO, too, was worthless. U.S. generals were letting the allied member countries get away with murder, he said, and they owed the United States a lot of money after not living up to their promise of paying their dues.

�They�re in arrears,� Trump said, reverting to the language of real estate. He lifted both his arms at his sides in frustration. Then he scolded top officials for the untold millions of dollars he believed they had let slip through their fingers by allowing allies to avoid their obligations.

�We are owed money you haven�t been collecting!� Trump told them. �You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business.�

(Penguin Press)
(Penguin Press)
Mattis wasn�t trying to convince the president of anything, only to explain and provide facts. Now things were devolving quickly. The general tried to calmly explain to the president that he was not quite right. The NATO allies didn�t owe the United States back rent, he said. The truth was more complicated. NATO had a nonbinding goal that members should pay at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their defenses. Only five of the countries currently met that goal, but it wasn�t as if they were shorting the United States on the bill.

More broadly, Mattis argued, the NATO alliance was not serving only to protect western Europe. It protected America, too. �This is what keeps us safe,� Mattis said. Cohn tried to explain to Trump that he needed to see the value of the trade deals. �These are commitments that help keep us safe,� Cohn said.

Bannon interjected. �Stop, stop, stop,� he said. �All you guys talk about all these great things, they�re all our partners, I want you to name me now one country and one company that�s going to have his back.�

Trump then repeated a threat he�d made countless times before. He wanted out of the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama had struck in 2015, which called for Iran to eliminate its uranium stockpile and cut its nuclear weaponry.

�It�s the worst deal in history!� Trump declared.

�Well, actually . . .,� Tillerson interjected.

�I don�t want to hear it,� Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state before he could explain some of the benefits of the agreement. �They�re cheating. They�re building. We�re getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.�

Before they could debate the Iran deal, Trump erupted to revive another frequent complaint: the war in Afghanistan, which was now America�s longest war. He demanded an explanation for why the United States hadn�t won in Afghanistan yet, now 16 years after the nation began fighting there in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump unleashed his disdain, calling Afghanistan a �loser war.� That phrase hung in the air and disgusted not only the military leaders at the table but also the men and women in uniform sitting along the back wall behind their principals. They all were sworn to obey their commander in chief�s commands, and here he was calling the war they had been fighting a loser war.

�You�re all losers,� Trump said. �You don�t know how to win anymore.�

Trump questioned why the United States couldn�t get some oil as payment for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. �We spent $7 trillion; they�re ripping us off,� Trump boomed. �Where is the f---ing oil?�

Trump seemed to be speaking up for the voters who elected him, and several attendees thought they heard Bannon in Trump�s words. Bannon had been trying to persuade Trump to withdraw forces by telling him, �The American people are saying we can�t spend a trillion dollars a year on this. We just can�t. It�s going to bankrupt us.�

�And not just that, the deplorables don�t want their kids in the South China Sea at the 38th parallel or in Syria, in Afghanistan, in perpetuity,� Bannon would add, invoking Hillary Clinton�s infamous �basket of deplorables� reference to Trump supporters.

Trump mused about removing General John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in charge of troops in Afghanistan. �I don�t think he knows how to win,� the president said, impugning Nicholson, who was not present at the meeting.

Dunford tried to come to Nicholson�s defense, but the mild-mannered general struggled to convey his points to the irascible president.

�Mr. President, that�s just not . . .,� Dunford started. �We�ve been under different orders.�

Dunford sought to explain that he hadn�t been charged with annihilating the enemy in Afghanistan but was instead following a strategy started by the Obama administration to gradually reduce the military presence in the country in hopes of training locals to maintain a stable government so that eventually the United States could pull out. Trump shot back in more plain language.

�I want to win,� he said. �We don�t win any wars anymore . . . We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and we�re not winning anymore.�

Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn�t taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.

�I wouldn�t go to war with you people,� Trump told the assembled brass.

Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, �You�re a bunch of dopes and babies.�

For a president known for verbiage he euphemistically called �locker room talk,� this was the gravest insult he could have delivered to these people, in this sacred space. The flag officers in the room were shocked. Some staff began looking down at their papers, rearranging folders, almost wishing themselves out of the room. A few considered walking out. They tried not to reveal their revulsion on their faces, but questions raced through their minds. �How does the commander in chief say that?� one thought. �What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?�

This was a president who had been labeled a �draft dodger� for avoiding service in the Vietnam War under questionable circumstances. Trump was a young man born of privilege and in seemingly perfect health: six feet two inches with a muscular build and a flawless medical record. He played several sports, including football. Then, in 1968 at age 22, he obtained a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that exempted him from military service just as the United States was drafting men his age to fulfill massive troop deployments to Vietnam.

Tillerson in particular was stunned by Trump�s diatribe and began visibly seething. For too many minutes, others in the room noticed, he had been staring straight, dumbfounded, at Mattis, who was speechless, his head bowed down toward the table. Tillerson thought to himself, �Gosh darn it, Jim, say something. Why aren�t you saying something?�

But, as he would later tell close aides, Tillerson realized in that moment that Mattis was genetically a Marine, unable to talk back to his commander in chief, no matter what nonsense came out of his mouth.

The more perplexing silence was from Pence, a leader who should have been able to stand up to Trump. Instead, one attendee thought, �He�s sitting there frozen like a statue. Why doesn�t he stop the president?� Another recalled the vice president was �a wax museum guy.� From the start of the meeting, Pence looked as if he wanted to escape and put an end to the president�s torrent. Surely, he disagreed with Trump�s characterization of military leaders as �dopes and babies,� considering his son, Michael, was a Marine first lieutenant then training for his naval aviator wings. But some surmised Pence feared getting crosswise with Trump. �A total deer in the headlights,� recalled a third attendee.

Others at the table noticed Trump�s stream of venom had taken an emotional toll. So many people in that room had gone to war and risked their lives for their country, and now they were being dressed down by a president who had not. They felt sick to their stomachs. Tillerson told others he thought he saw a woman in the room silently crying. He was furious and decided he couldn�t stand it another minute. His voice broke into Trump�s tirade, this one about trying to make money off U.S. troops.

�No, that�s just wrong,� the secretary of state said. �Mr. President, you�re totally wrong. None of that is true.�

Tillerson�s father and uncle had both been combat veterans, and he was deeply proud of their service.

�The men and women who put on a uniform don�t do it to become soldiers of fortune,� Tillerson said. �That�s not why they put on a uniform and go out and die . . . They do it to protect our freedom.�

There was silence in the Tank. Several military officers in the room were grateful to the secretary of state for defending them when no one else would. The meeting soon ended and Trump walked out, saying goodbye to a group of servicemen lining the corridor as he made his way to his motorcade waiting outside. Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn were deflated. Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let down his guard.

�He�s a f---ing moron,� the secretary of state said of the president.

The plan by Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn to train the president to appreciate the internationalist view had clearly backfired.

�We were starting to get out on the wrong path, and we really needed to have a course correction and needed to educate, to teach, to help him understand the reason and basis for a lot of these things,� said one senior official involved in the planning. �We needed to change how he thinks about this, to course correct. Everybody was on board, 100 percent agreed with that sentiment. [But] they were dismayed and in shock when not only did it not have the intended effect, but he dug in his heels and pushed it even further on the spectrum, further solidifying his views.�

A few days later, Pence�s national security adviser, Andrea Thompson, a retired Army colonel who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq, reached out to thank Tillerson for speaking up on behalf of the military and the public servants who had been in the Tank. By September 2017, she would leave the White House and join Tillerson at Foggy Bottom as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs.

The Tank meeting had so thoroughly shocked the conscience of military leaders that they tried to keep it a secret. At the Aspen Security Forum two days later, longtime NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell asked Dunford how Trump had interacted during the Tank meeting. The Joint Chiefs chairman misleadingly described the meeting, skipping over the fireworks.

�He asked a lot of hard questions, and the one thing he does is question some fundamental assumptions that we make as military leaders � and he will come in and question those,� Dunford told Mitchell on July 22. �It�s a pretty energetic and an interactive dialogue.�

One victim of the Tank meeting was Trump�s relationship with Tillerson, which forever after was strained. The secretary of state came to see it as the beginning of the end. It would only worsen when news that Tillerson had called Trump a �moron� was first reported in October 2017 by NBC News.

President Trump walks from the Oval Office to board Marine One on Jan. 9. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
President Trump walks from the Oval Office to board Marine One on Jan. 9. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
*****

Trump once again gathered his generals and top diplomats in December 2017 for a meeting as part of the administration�s ongoing strategy talks about troop deployments in Afghanistan in the Situation Room, a secure meeting room on the ground floor of the West Wing. Trump didn�t like the Situation Room as much as the Pentagon�s Tank, because he didn�t think it had enough gravitas. It just wasn�t impressive.

But there Trump was, struggling to come up with a new Afghanistan policy and frustrated that so many U.S. forces were deployed in so many places around the world. The conversation began to tilt in the same direction as it had in the Tank back in July.

�All these countries need to start paying us for the troops we are sending to their countries. We need to be making a profit,� Trump said. �We could turn a profit on this.�

Dunford tried to explain to the president once again, gently, that troops deployed in these regions provided stability there, which helped make America safer. Another officer chimed in that charging other countries for U.S. soldiers would be against the law.

�But it just wasn�t working,� one former Trump aide recalled. �Nothing worked.�

Following the Tank meeting, Tillerson had told his aides that he would never silently tolerate such demeaning talk from Trump about making money off the deployments of U.S. soldiers. Tillerson�s father, at the age of 17, had committed to enlist in the Navy on his next birthday, wanting so much to serve his country in World War II. His great-uncle was a career officer in the Navy as well. Both men had been on his mind, Tillerson told aides, when Trump unleashed his tirade in the Tank and again when he repeated those points in the Situation Room in December.

�We need to get our money back,� Trump told his assembled advisers.

That was it. Tillerson stood up. But when he did so, he turned his back to the president and faced the flag officers and the rest of the aides in the room. He didn�t want a repeat of the scene in the Tank.

�I�ve never put on a uniform, but I know this,� Tillerson said. �Every person who has put on a uniform, the people in this room, they don�t do it to make a buck. They did it for their country, to protect us. I want everyone to be clear about how much we as a country value their service.�

Tillerson�s rebuke made Trump angry. He got a little red in the face. But the president decided not to engage Tillerson at that moment. He would wait to take him on another day.

Later that evening, after 8:00, Tillerson was working in his office at the State Department�s Foggy Bottom headquarters, preparing for the next day. The phone rang. It was Dunford. The Joint Chiefs chairman�s voice was unsteady with emotion. Dunford had much earlier joked with Tillerson that in past administrations the secretaries of state and Defense Department leaders wouldn�t be caught dead walking on the same side of the street, for their rivalry was that fierce. But now, as both men served Trump, they were brothers joined against what they saw as disrespect for service members. Dunford thanked Tillerson for standing up for them in the Situation Room.

�You took the body blows for us,� Dunford said. �Punch after punch. Thank you. I will never forget it.�

President Trump delivers remarks on environmental regulations in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Jan. 9. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
President Trump delivers remarks on environmental regulations in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Jan. 9. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Tillerson, Dunford, and Mattis would not take those body blows for much longer. They failed to rein in Trump�s impulses or to break through what they regarded as the president�s stubborn, even dangerous insistence that he knew best. Piece by piece, the guardrails that had hemmed in the chaos of Trump�s presidency crumpled.

In March 2018, Trump abruptly fired Tillerson while the secretary of state was halfway across the globe on a sensitive diplomatic mission to Africa to ease tensions caused by Trump�s demeaning insults about African countries. Trump gave Tillerson no rationale for his firing, and afterward acted as if they were buddies, inviting him to come by the Oval Office to take a picture and have the president sign it. Tillerson never went.

Mattis continued serving as the defense secretary, but the president�s sudden decision in December 2018 to withdraw troops from Syria and abandon America�s Kurdish allies there � one the president soon reversed, only to remake 10 months later � inspired him to resign. Mattis saw Trump�s desired withdrawal as an assault on a soldier�s code. �He began to feel like he was becoming complicit,� recalled one of the secretary�s confidants.

The media interpretation of Mattis� resignation letter as a scathing rebuke of Trump�s worldview brought the president�s anger to a boiling point. Trump decided to remove Mattis two months ahead of the secretary�s chosen departure date. His treatment of Mattis upset the secretary�s staff. They decided to arrange the biggest clap out they could. The event was a tradition for all departing secretaries. They wanted a line of Pentagon personnel that stretched for a mile applauding Mattis as he left for the last time. It was going to be �yuge,� staffers joked, borrowing from Trump�s glossary.

But Mattis would not allow it.

�No, we are not doing that,� he told his aides. �You don�t understand the president. I work with him. You don�t know him like I do. He will take it out on Shanahan and Dunford.�

Dunford stayed on until September 2019, retiring at the conclusion of his four-year term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One of Dunford�s first public acts after leaving office was to defend a military officer attacked by Trump, Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official who testified in the House impeachment inquiry about his worries over Trump�s conduct with Ukraine. Trump dismissed Vindman as a �Never Trumper,� but Dunford stepped forward to praise the Purple Heart recipient as �a professional, competent, patriotic, and loyal officer. He has made an extraordinary contribution to the security of our nation.�

By then, however, Trump had become a president entirely unrestrained. He had replaced his raft of seasoned advisers with a cast of enablers who executed his orders and engaged his obsessions. They saw their mission as telling the president yes.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 15:11

That Works: Jul 22, 2006; Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy

"Mattis opened with a slide show punctuated by lots of dollar signs"

Lmao

# ? Jan 17, 2020 15:30

MA-Horus: Dec 3, 2006; I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.

Pretty telling that Trump replaced anyone who ever stood up to him for any reason with a bunch of knob-slobbering yes-men.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 15:34

pantslesswithwolves: Oct 28, 2008

It�s at times like these that I remember the right wing press allegations that Obama was disdainful and disrespectful to Are Troops. No doubt they�ll soon be coming out of in full force against Trump�s actual disdain and disrespect!

# ? Jan 17, 2020 16:09

MA-Horus: Dec 3, 2006; I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.

I thought 2019 was the year everything and everyone was baby, but I guess it's this whole cursed timeline.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 16:13

Milo and POTUS: Sep 3, 2017; I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?

Kesper North posted:

Lord help you if you punch in red phosphorous instead of red phosphate.

Red mercury

# ? Jan 17, 2020 16:28

Milo and POTUS: Sep 3, 2017; I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?

MA-Horus posted:

Pretty telling that Trump replaced anyone who ever stood up to him for any reason with a bunch of knob-slobbering yes-men.

My current hypothesis is that conservatism stems ultimately from egotism. My source is reality itself

# ? Jan 17, 2020 16:31

Hexyflexy: Sep 2, 2011; asymptotically approaching one

Milo and POTUS posted:

My current hypothesis is that conservatism stems ultimately from egotism. My source is reality itself

I think fear is a better answer.

# ? Jan 17, 2020 16:39

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 1, 2024 06:54

Duzzy Funlop: Jan 13, 2010; Hi there, would you like to try some spicy products?

stealie72 posted:

Paraphrasing here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBWmkwaTQ0k&t=11s

I cannot go into specifics, but let's hypothetically assume I have had work experience with an employer where a constant in-joke at completely un-realizable planning scenarios by upper management would be sarcastically be commented on (behind closed doors) as "well, I guess Steiner's going to straighten all of this out".

Man, how wild would that be, huh?

# ? Jan 17, 2020 16:53

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > January Current Events: 50 is my favorite caliber AND my BMI

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